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Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:59:58 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/bf69214e83fdd5520e4b5d91ba3b7d64?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png » Yue Yuehttp://news.nationalpost.com
Another child run over in China is caught on camera, this time crowd rushes to lift SUV off of herhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/child-run-over-in-china-crowd-gathers-to-lift-suv-off-of-her
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/child-run-over-in-china-crowd-gathers-to-lift-suv-off-of-her#commentsTue, 13 Dec 2011 15:16:01 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=118784

REUTERS/CCTV via Reuters TVA girl, who had stopped in the middle of a street, is run over by a car in Wenzou, eastern China, in this combination picture made of still images taken from video released December 13, 2011. The five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but is said to have suffered only minor injuries

On the morning of December 9th, a five-year-old girl in Wenzhou, China, threw a mini-protest about attending kindergarten that day. So she defiantly sat in the street, which was apparently acceptable to her mother. Along came an SUV, and when the driver failed to spot the child sitting in the street, the car ran her over. The driver popped out and called for help around her. Bystanders gathered. In total, about 16 people helped lift the car off the girl

As you can see in the video embedded below, the child seems mostly unharmed after escaping from beneath the car. In fact, after being treated for minor injuries, she still needed to go to school (something, looking at the start of the video, she didn’t look too jazzed about).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2YKbxmQydA&w=640&h=390]

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]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/child-run-over-in-china-crowd-gathers-to-lift-suv-off-of-her/feed/2stdA girl, who had stopped in the middle of a street, is run over by a car in Wenzou, eastern China, in this combination picture made of still images taken from video released December 13, 2011. The five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but is said to have suffered only minor injuriesChinese toddler Yue Yue: Driver charged over hit-and-run deathhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/driver-charged-after-hit-and-run-death-of-chinese-toddler-report
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/driver-charged-after-hit-and-run-death-of-chinese-toddler-report#commentsMon, 24 Oct 2011 12:14:38 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=102538

BEIJING — Chinese police have charged a man suspected of running over a two-year-old girl who later died of her injuries and then fleeing the scene, in a case that shocked the nation, state media said Monday.

Surveillance camera footage that showed at least 18 people walk past the girl after she was knocked down on a Chinese street has sparked a public outcry and much soul-searching over the state of the country’s morals.

Hu Jun, 24, was charged with causing the wrongful death of the girl, nicknamed Yue Yue, in the southern city of Foshan on October 13, the official Procuratorial Daily newspaper said on its website.

Police in Foshan declined to comment, directing media to the Beijing-based newspaper, which has links to China’s top prosecution body.

Earlier reports said a second driver who ran over the girl as she lay bleeding in the street had also been arrested, but the Procuratorial Daily made no mention of him.

Millions of Chinese have gone online to watch the grainy footage of the incident, which took place in a narrow market street in Foshan.

The surveillance footage shows Yue Yue, the daughter of migrant workers, lying in the street for seven minutes before a female rubbish collector moves her to the curb and calls for help.

Several passersby can be seen stopping to look down at the girl before carrying on, and their failure to help her has triggered speculation the country’s rapid development and urbanisation has made people more selfish.

YouTubeA YouTube frame grab from the video. This image comes from before Yueyue is hit for the first time

China’s hugely popular weibos — microblogs similar to Twitter — have buzzed with the incident since the video emerged, with many online commentators hailing the rubbish collector as a hero.

But there has also been much soul-searching about why both the drivers who hit Yue Yue and the passersby in China’s wealthiest province, Guangdong, chose to leave her for dead rather than stop and help.

Earlier, Foshan police said in a web posting that Hu, who faces three to seven years in prison if convicted, had given himself up three nights after the accident.

BEIJING — A Chinese toddler who was ignored by at least 18 passers-by as she lay bleeding and unconscious in the street, has died, the hospital treating her said Friday, in an incident that has shocked the nation.

The plight of the two-year-old girl, nicknamed Yue Yue, captured the public imagination after surveillance camera footage showed her being knocked down first by a van and then several minutes later by a small truck.

At least 18 people were shown walking past the girl as she lay in the street critically injured, before a female garbage collector finally picked her up and moved her to the curb.

Several passers-by can be seen stopping to look down at the girl before carrying on, and their failure to help her has triggered speculation the country’s rapid development and has made people more selfish.

Millions of Chinese went online to watch the grainy footage of the incident, which took place on October 13 in a narrow market street in the southern Chinese city of Foshan.

China’s hugely popular weibos — microblogs similar to Twitter — have buzzed with the incident since the video emerged, with many online commentators hailing the garbage collector as a hero.

But there has also been much soul-searching about why both the drivers who hit Yue Yue and the passers-by in China’s wealthiest province, Guangdong, chose to leave her for dead rather than stop and help.

“The little girl’s destiny made us ashamed because she left this world painfully due to our indifference and neglect,” posted one commentator online after the hospital treating Yue Yue said she had died.

A commentary in Friday’s Global Times daily said the incident had exposed the “dark side” of Chinese society.

“The Yue Yue incident reminds us of where China is standing on the ladder of its moral development,” it said. “This is what happens in a modern society when many decisions are shaped at a fast pace.”

A senior official in Guangdong said the tragedy should be a “wake-up call” for society.

“We should look into the ugliness in ourselves with a dagger of conscience and bite the soul-searching bullet,” said Wang Yang at a provincial meeting, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.

Some commentators speculated that the failure to help Yue Yue was motivated by fear of being blamed for her injuries after a high-profile 2006 case in which a driver who stopped to help an elderly woman was later prosecuted.

Peng Yu, then 26, said he stopped after seeing the woman fall in the eastern city of Nanjing, but she accused him of knocking her down with his car, and a court later ordered him to pay her 45,000 yuan in damages.

“The judge in Peng Yu’s case in Nanjing has destroyed the kindness of a whole nation and it is difficult to recover,” wrote one weibo user on Friday.

Retired sociologist Xia Xueluan of Peking University said the Peng Yu case was a turning point in recent Chinese history, after which many people feared a backlash for doing the right thing, the way heroes of his childhood always did.

“After Peng Yu, this is China’s moral quandary. When we were small, we had no such trouble knowing right from wrong. We had Lei Feng to look up to,” Xia told AFP.

Lei Feng was a Chinese army soldier whose selfless service to the Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong and China’s people was immortalised in a nationwide propaganda campaign targeting the country’s youth after his death in 1962.

“Today, we have no Lei Feng,” Xia said.

Psychologist Hu Shenzhi of the Guangdong Sunflower Counseling Center said Chinese today are stressed knowing that social services have not developped as fast as the economy, so many fear debt if they fall ill or are in an accident.

“Under the circumstances, there’s slim chance of helping others. If the two drivers stopped to help the kid, they wouldn’t have had the chance to get away, then they would be asked to pay lots of money,” Hu told AFP.

“As for the 18 passers-by, if they helped, they would probably be blamed for causing the accident. In China, everyone’s trying to protect himself,” he said.

Police in Foshan said the drivers of both vehicles that hit the young girl had been detained and would face trial.

One was detained the night of the accident and the other gave himself up three days later, police said.

A two-year-old girl knocked down and crushed by a van in China and then ignored by a string of passersby is brain-dead, according to press reports.

The Chinese state news agency Xinhua said Wang Yue — also called Yue Yue — was in a deep coma and could die at any time.

However, the China Daily gave a conflicting report and said she was showing signs of stability.

Yue Yue was walking in a narrow market street in the city of Foshan in Guangdong province when she was hit and run over by a van. The driver stopped, but then continued driving, running over Yue Yue again with his rear wheels.

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However, it was the callous reaction of passersby — caught on a security camera — that provoked outrage and soul-searching in China. Eighteen people ignored the bleeding child as she lay in the gutter — some walked or cycled around her — before a garbage collector went to her aid.

Handout photoYueyue and her mother. The child was hit first by a van and then a truck outside her family's shop in the southern Chinese city of Foshan

THE RESCUER

The China Daily reported that Chen Xianmei, the garbage collector, was given a 10,000 yuan ($1,588) reward by local officials. A local company was also said to have offered Yue Yue’s family and the rescuer 50,000 yuan ($7,945). “Besides the reward, we would like to offer Chen a job with stable income so as to encourage this kind of activity,” an anonymous assistant manager at the company told the paper.

THE HIT-AND-RUN DRIVERS

After Yue Yue was hit by the van, another truck also ran over her and left the scene.

The China Daily reported, “Both drivers said they didn’t see the child before the accident happened, according to the police. The first driver who knocked down Yue Yue expressed regret, deep sadness and apologies to the child’s family.”

But according to the Shanghaiist news website, the first driver, who had just broken up with his girlfriend, was on the cell phone when he hit Yue Yue and was not contrite. “You saw that girl on the CCTV footage, she didn’t see where she was going, you know. I was on the phone when it happened, I didn’t mean it,” the website quoted him as saying. “When I realised I had knocked her down, I thought I’d go down to see how she was. Then when I saw that she was already bleeding, I decided to just step on the gas pedal and escape seeing that nobody was around me.”

THE PASSERSBY

The China Daily said several of the passersby claimed not to have seen the girl. A man named Zhang who was driving an electric tricycle, said, “I couldn’t see clearly because it was dark then.” A woman called Lin holding the hand of a little girl said, “The girl was bleeding in mouth and ear and crying a little. I was so scared and my girl cried because of fear, therefore, we left.” A shop owner said, “If I saw her, I would definitely have offered help.”

However, several vehicles are clearly seen swerving around the girl who was lying in the middle of the road.

THE DANGER OF A HELPING HAND

Xinhua report that “Good Samaritans” in China have often ended up paying the price.

One driver who stopped to help a woman was ordered to pay her compensation of 108,606 yuan ($17,261) after a court ruled he may have been responsible for her fall.

The news site reported that the Chinese Ministry of Health had issued guidelines to the public saying, “Don’t rush to lend a hand to the elderly after seeing them fall over. It should be handled by different measures in different situations.”

Tan Fang, a professor with the South China Normal University in Guangzhou, has set up a foundation to provide assistance to Good Samaritans who get in trouble helping the elderly. “The people who rescued others, at the risk of their own lives, haven’t been treated fairly,” Mr. Tan told USA Today.

A shocking video of a small girl being struck by a van on a busy road in China — and then ignored by more than a dozen people who pass the writhing toddler without offering aid — is becoming a weighty metaphor for the social and political ills of the world’s most populous country.

Millions of people have been watching the surveillance camera footage of last Thursday’s tragedy and many are expressing outrage, sparking an unusual outpouring of vitriol in China at the decline of humanity in their new society.

“Poor China, are we even rescuable?” was a message on the Chinese version of Twitter. A local commentator decried, “Now people ignore everything other than money. This society is lacking people with a conscience.”

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Handout photoYue Yue and her mother. The child was hit first by a van and then a truck outside her family's shop in the southern Chinese city of Foshan

But beyond the stunning callousness, the story is particularly gripping because it perfectly reflects the social and political debates China faces and the narrative of this tragedy is coming to symbolize the confusion.

“China has torn up its traditional moral roots based on kinship and generations of patriarchal authority and transformed into a modern capitalist society.… Confucius was replaced by communism, but in 2011 no one knows whom or what to believe,” said James Miller, a professor of Chinese Studies at Queen’s University.

“This incident shows that they haven’t been replaced with anything yet.”

The video is even more repelling than it sounds.

A girl identified as Yueyue, wearing red pants and black top, her dark hair short and spiky, wanders into a market roadway in Foshan City in Guangdong. Looking to her right, a white van approaches from the left and at the last minute she turns, just in time to raise her arms as she is smashed by its fender and trundled under its wheel.

The van bumps to a stop, with Yueyue between its front and rear tires, then continues forward, seeming to crush her abdomen.

Then, perhaps even more shockingly, a steady stream of people pass the girl, struggling in a pool of blood, occasionally twitching or waving her arms.

In the footage from a nearby business, aired by a television station in Guangdong, a man immediately walks past with his shoes only a foot from hers, ignoring her.

Then a man on a motorcycle swerves to avoid her but keeps going.

Handout photoSurveillance cameras showed a series of people walk past the girl

Next, a second truck, bigger than the first, slows down but still runs over her legs, stretching another trail of blood.

Van after bicycle after motorcycle after pedestrian passes. One man pulls his motorbike to a halt and looks, then, appearing to change his mind, zooms off.

A mother walking with a girl not much older than Yueyue walks past. The second girl, in whimsical yellow, stares as the mother pulls on her hand to keep moving.

After six minutes, according to the video’s time code, a garbage collector puts down a bag of refuse and goes over. One of Yueyue’s arms waves morosely. She pulls her to the side of the road and then went in search of her parents.

Soon afterwards, Yueyue’s mother jogs up and picks her up and leaves with her.

The case has enflamed passions, drawing millions of viewers and outraged comments. Even China’s official news agency, Xinhua, questions what it says about Chinese society.

“High moral standards were once triumphed as national pride in China, where individuals known for selflessly helping others were adored by the public. But in recent years, the perception of a decline of morals has become a hot topic as profit and materialism are perceived to be affecting society’s values,” reads a Xinhua report.

Prof. Miller said while it seems impossible to explain the dramatic apathy to Yueyue’s suffering, unprecedented social upheaval in China has traumatized its citizenry. While there are examples of callous behaviour across the globe, including bystanders ignoring a gang rape in Canada, this tragedy has a more dramatic backdrop.

“What we can start to understand is how this tragic death has become a flashpoint for moral outrage in China that focuses not on the incident itself but a wide range of contemporary social problems,” Prof. Miller said.

Some of China’s biggest issues are conjured in Yueyue’s fate: rural migration to the cities; a distrust of authorities; anger at the social elites; the rise of naked capitalism.

Yueyue’s parents are rural migrants who live on the fringes of the city. Guangdong is China’s most populous province with 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants, a huge displacement that tears the social fabric.

Some commentators blame distrust of authorities, drawing comparison to other would-be Good Samaritans who were held liable for damages or wrongly accused of being a perpetrator. The lone assistance for Yueyue from a garbage collector — among the lowest positions in the social strata — is seen as an indictment of society’s elites.

And many point a finger at the emergence of naked capitalism.

“There is a gold rush mentality — people are clambering over other people to try to make ends meet, to try to get ahead. With the adoption of capitalism, it is seen as being all about self interest,” said Prof. Miller.

“It is very hard for people. The old norms of ethical relationships are going out the window. The networks built out of people’s kinship groups — their home village, their family — have been broken.”

In the West, modernization was experienced at a slower pace, over centuries, but many rural Chinese see the same change within their lifetime. In the West, other groups such as churches and social organizations evolved to fill the gaps, he said.

Meanwhile, Yueyue was said to have died but China Daily published photographs of the battered girl in intensive care. Xinhua reported she was on life support in a deep coma and Yueyue’s mother is reported to have sent a message that her daughter was unable to breathe on her own but had regained some sensation in her limbs.

Her weeping father was shown on television, saying, “I don’t have any thoughts now, I just hope my child will wake up and call me Dad again,” the Daily Telegraph reported.

Chinese media said both drivers who hit Yueyue were arrested.

Before surrendering to police, the first driver complained to the media, “If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,213). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan.”